That’s a public document – if you send it anyplace, please mention the CCAC, the source for this, with the address of this page. If you also let us know you are using it, with an email, good to know. CCACaptioning@gmail.com

A transcript is not the same thing as captioning for any media or for live events. Yet it’s the first step always for media captioning. We call this a good cousin to quality captioning.

In fact, shall copy the document here below – a work in progress. Add your suggestions:

CCAC HOW TO – MAKE A TRANSCRIPT FOR YOUR PODCAST

Thank you to CCAC Members (Chris, Claude, and Andrea, Lauren, others) for the information below. Suggestions, corrections and additions invited – CCACaptioning@gmail.com

An accurate transcript for your Podcast is essential for accessibility. Millions of good folks don’t hear clearly, if at all. They want to learn from you too. They want to enjoy your creation. Others like to have the transcript for other good reasons (when they don’t have time to listen to the entire podcast, they like to read quickly at first, return to the podcast later), and including a transcript allows your podcast to be found by search engines.

HOW TO SUGGESTIONS::

I’ve been using YouTube to create .srt files for videos, and it’s gotten a LOT more accurate over the last couple years. I download the .srt file and then use Aegisub to edit the subtitles and create either an .ass file for making “hardcoded” subtitles with more visual formatting (.ass supports different fonts and screen positions, and bold and italics and such) or an .srt for reuploading to YouTube or other video platforms that use .srt.

You can upload the audio file to YouTube using https://www.tunestotube.com/. If I was doing it I would download the .srt file and edit that to make my transcript.

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CCAC asked, “Can a machine speech to text system can do this from the podcast? “

Yes, it can be done: You just use the default video editor of your

computer and add to it the audio file and a black picture, then save

as a video (MP4 for instance). Then you can upload the video to

YouTube, and YouTube will autocaption it.

If the podcast is long (e.g. over 30 minutes) split

the audio file into two and make two mock videos, as above.

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There is a group online that may do the transcript for low cost – check out

CCAC volunteers are ready to offer help and other ideas – Get in touch, and/or join us! We welcome hearing folks as CCAC members too – many!

Added 17 April 2017 – Using Amara you can have the text as actual captioning moving along the same screen as the audio/sounds/words: from Claude —
subtitled audio podcast made in Amara – by creating the Amara page by adding the podcast URL in the “Subtitle video”
<http://www.amara.orgwww.m.amara.org/en/videos/create/> page;

– copying their transcript in a text editor, slicing it in
subtitle-length chunks (i.e ca 80 characters, spaces included)
separated by a blank line, then saving the resultas a UTF-8 encoded
.txt file

– uploading the .txt file to the created Amara page

– using the Amara editor to synchronize the result of the upload into
proper subtitles, and publishing.

– I actually downloaded the original audio file (1) and reuploaded it
somewhere else (2), in case it disappeared from the original location.
But they could use their own URL for the MP3 if they intend to let it
stay.

– I did the original French transcript with Amara’s editor instead of
uploading it, but that’s neither here nor there.

Advantages:

– for someone hard of hearing or with scarce oral comprehension of the
original, having subtitles synced with the audio is better than having
a static transcript in a different window;

– even for people who can understand the original audio, the subtitles
generate an interactive transcript that can be opened by clicking the
icon that looks like a printed page bottom left of the player, which
is searchable: so if you want to hear again a given passage, you
search that interactive transcript for it, click on it and the audio
starts playing from there;

– it’s very easy to translate CC subtitles with the Amara editor: in
my example, “NonSentoMaLeggo” (meaning “I Don’tHear But I Read, so
presumably a deaf person) translated them into Italian, and Esther
Premkumar started to do the same in Spanish (and I did the English
translation).